The IT Nerd

This is the first of two reviews on Apple Watch Brands from The Watch Strap Company which is a UK based vendor of Apple Watch Bands. I’ve got my hands on a couple of their bands and the band that I am reviewing today is their Link Bracelet:

The watch strap is very classy looking and it looks almost exactly like the Apple Link Bracelet. And that’s right down to the butterfly clasp.

The butterfly clasp looks and acts almost exactly like the Apple Link Bracelet with the release buttons being flush with the rest of the band. I got this one in space black and it matches my Series 4 Apple Watch perfectly. The quality is top notch. And that starts with the lugs. I immediately noted that they fit onto the watch with much less play than any third party Apple Watch strap that I have reviewed. It feels very well built and isn’t heavy feeling. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that it uses the same 316L stainless steel that Apple does. I wore it for a week and it was very comfortable to wear. I was impressed.

Gripes? It comes with extra links. But it comes without a tool to allow you to remove or add links as unlike the Apple Link Bracelet, there are no buttons to easily add or remove links (because I am guessing that they don’t want to get sued by Apple). That means that unless you have a link removal tool, you need to go to a jeweler to get this done. Now I happen to have a link removal tool but I didn’t need to use it as it fit perfectly out of the box. Which by the way, the box is lined with a felt like material and the band was wrapped up very well to protect it during transport. It all felt very high end and premium.

Now let’s get to the price. This band isn’t your typical Amazon knockoff. It goes for $146.15 CAD. Now that sounds expensive. But consider the fact that this is still a whole lot cheaper than the $619 CAD that Apple wants for its link band. And from what I can tell, the quality is pretty close to the Apple one. So what I would say is that if you don’t want to spend Apple money for a link bracelet, and you want something better than a cheap Amazon knockoff, then the The Watch Strap Company Link Bracelet is the way to go.

This entry was posted on May 20, 2019 at 6:02 am and is filed under Commentary with tags The Watch Strap Company. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.